Ventura County, California added jobs in February

Ventura County’s economy gained 3,000 nonfarm jobs last month, more than compensating for the loss of 1,500 nonfarm jobs posted in January.

Big gains in education, health services and retail helped bring the county’s unemployment rate down to 7.3 percent from a revised 7.6 percent in January, the state Employment Development Department reported Friday. A year ago, county unemployment stood at a revised 8.2 percent.

The current average long-term unemployment rate between January 2000 and December 2013 for Ventura County is 5.8 percent.

“So there’s still a bit of a gap between the current rate and the long-run average rate,” said Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. “Part of the reason for the gap is the pace of growth in Ventura County has been a little slower than we see elsewhere.”

Wage and salary growth is 1.3 percent in Ventura County, whereas it’s 2.5 percent in Los Angeles County, 2.2 percent in Orange County.

Bruce Stenslie, president and CEO of the Economic Development Collaborative of Ventura County was pleased to see added jobs in education and health services.

“We were continuously surprised last year over the lack of gains in health care,” he said. “ It turns out the gains were there all along, though masked by rapid changes in health care policy and employment practices that are making it difficult to track the jobs.”

California’s unemployment rate dropped to 8 percent in February as nonfarm payroll jobs increased by 58,800. The year-over-year change, February 2013 to February 2014, shows a 2.2 percent increase to 336,600 jobs.

California’s unemployment rate was 8.1 percent in January and 9.4 percent in February 2013. There were 1,497,000 people unemployed in California last month, down by 9,000 from January, and down by 245,000 compared with February of last year.

The U.S. unemployment rate increased to 6.7 percent in February.

Steve Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, said that for the first month in many years, the state’s government sector posted a year-over-year job gain. He also noted large statewide gains in professional, scientific and technical services, construction and jobs in the wholesale trade.

“The state, starting from a deep hole, has recovered nearly all of the jobs lost during the recession, matching the national results,” he said.